ok, I'll do my best to explain:
first, I added a new command called "strategy", at the bottom of the actor command window. Basically this will eventually be the replacement for Guard, since it includes "guard" like actions.
Strategy allows an actor to decide "how" they will fight, by changing their focus in three categories important in battle:
- your sense of timing
- your sense of attacker vs. defender
- your level of rage vs. self control
Timing governs
initiative and patience - the yellow/blue bar. Favoring initiative means you tend to attack first, Favoring patience means you wait for an opening, maximizing criticals. This is a boxing strategy.
attacker/defender are using variants of anime/Martial Art terms
Semeru and Ukeru - the green/indigo bar in the middle. In practice, the 'Uke" is the person who receives the attack, so their defense and preparation to get hit/thrown is maxed out. The "Seme" or attacker is focusing on properly hitting and throwing, so their skill at attacking and stamina to keep up the offense is higher.
rage/self control governs
brutality and finesse - the red/orange bar at the bottom. Angry people tend to throw wild powerful blows, and swing swords a lot harder, but their accuracy sucks. A person with a lot of finesse is accurate, agile, and effective.
A bonus in one category is a penalty in it's opposite. So we are looking at
- Evasion (vs. hit/crit),
- Initiative (going first),
- Critical (dmg multiplier),
- Damage (base dmg),
- Attack (chance to hit),
- and Defense (vs. dmg)
Here's a screen shot of the various bitmaps:
the x_rotate, y_rotate, and z_rotate images are tiny hexagons with long white lines, that then rotate with the hexagons as their origin point over the red space of the tri_circle. The hexagon parts of these three images is concealed with a "lid", called tri_cover.
The arrowR, arrowG, and arrowB represent red, green, and blue, and slide side to side along the three bars. Each of the three parts points at a different part of the triangle. Assembled at start,
here's what the strategy bar & triangle look like when the three attributes are at 0:
and here's what a strategy bar looks like when the three attributes are changed:
The purpose of the script is to allow the following sequence:
1. load the images in place
2. get the current actor's 3 attributes
class Game_Actor < Game_Battler
attr_accessor :spd # initiative/timing strategy
attr_accessor :uke # uke/seme strategy
attr_accessor :agg # brutal/finesse strategy
def setup(actor_id)
@spd = 0
@uke = 0
@agg = 0
end
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
# * Calculate SPD - yellow/blue initiative/critical bar
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
def spd=(spd)
@spd = [[spd, 10].min, -10].max
end
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
# * Calculate UKE - green/indigo attack/dodge bar
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
def uke=(uke)
@uke = [[uke, 10].min, -10].max
end
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
# * Calculate AGG - red/orange damage/evasion bar
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
def agg=(agg)
@agg = [[agg, 10].min, -10].max
end
end
3. decide which of the three bars you are going to change by pushing UP or DOWN (it might help the player to know which is highlighted if these could be made to glow when active)
4. decide where the arrow is going to be by pushing LEFT or RIGHT repeatedly, to a max of +/- 10
5. hit SPACE BAR (Input C) to confirm
6. hit ESC (Input B) to cancel changes (I haven't added this yet because steps 3,4, and 5 are glitched)
if you want, I can make a demo of the current script on a new project, so all my other changes don't act as a distraction